Tuesday’s Tip with The Kitchen Whisperer – How to store corn on the cob

So if you’re like me, corn on the cob is one of the perfect summer foods. It’s iconic for cookouts, back yard bbqs, carnivals and just because it’s a Thursday night. Corn on the cob is simple and unpretentious yet probably one of the best things in a garden. It’s great as-is but nothing, NOTHING beats a roasted ear of corn with loads of butter and salt – have to have salt. Now when it comes to fresh corn on the cob, it doesn’t have that long of a shelf life once it’s picked off of the stalk. For peak flavor it should be eaten within 24 hours. Yeah, that doesn’t happen in my world.

While I live in countrybumpkinville, we do not have a farm nor grow veggies. Simply put I work waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much to grow a garden. Trust me, I WISH I had time to have one…someday. So I have to rely on farmer’s markets to get my corn. Truth be told, that’s about the only thing that I like about where I live – the abundance of farm-fresh veggies. But with that you aren’t really sure how recent the produce has been picked. Now granted you can check it out but unless you picked it, you don’t know. So with that you need to either eat it that night or learn how to store it to have it last a few more days. That’s what ou’ll be learning on today’s Tuesday’s Tip with The Kitchen Whisperer! Today I’m sharing with you how to store your corn on the cob to keep it as fresh as possible.

Growing up, we grew rows and rows of corn. While I’m not sure of the names of the corn but Dad grew 2 types – yellow butter corn (that’s what I called it because it was the color of butter and you really didn’t need butter on it as it was so sweet) and bi-color. I can remember when it came time to pick the corn Mom would give us each a big laundry basket and tell us to go head up to the garden to pick the corn. Now normally I loathed working in the garden because it was well, dirty and there were bugs. I’m sorry but those tomato worms were (and still are) the WORST! They are some prehistoric looking things!

We’d pick bushels upon bushels of corn and would have a huge cookout that night with family and friends. However corn was one of those things that, once picked, you really couldn’t let just set out. Thankfully we had a large fridge because whatever we didn’t cook up Mom would store in the fridge. If you left it set out, the corn wouldn’t go bad over night but it would lose it’s flavor and wouldn’t last more than a day or so.

You see if you store corn in the fridge the coldness helps retard the chemical breakdown that causes it to lose its sweetness and ‘freshness’. Now that doesn’t mean you can leave it the fridge for weeks but it does mean it’ll last 3-4 days in there.

So to store your corn, bring it home WITH THE HUSK ON, wrap it loosely in a paper towel and place in a plastic bag (not sealed up). You do not want the bag to create moisture as it could cause the corn to spoil. Now I’m not a fan AT ALL with boiled corn. It’s gross and you lose the sweetness of the corn by making it waterlogged. Wait, you add sugar to the water? Um.. if you didn’t boil the corn you wouldn’t have to add sugar. Think about it.

Instead roast it; husk on. Yes husk on. Whether you grill it or oven roast it, leave it on. Check out the ONLY way I will make corn on the cob.

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